“Hold up,” I told Shawn, just as he was turning to run. I turned my staff on him.

“What are you doing?”

“You that bind the all, protect them from all that might bring them harm.”

Repel, Other Created

+1 Creativity

A shell of aether formed around the man, and he looked at me.

“What did you do?”

“Think of it as a second set of armor,” I answered.

I turned the staff toward myself, as the hatch groaned in pain.

“You that bind the all, protect me from all that might bring me harm.”

A similar shell formed around me as well. The dried wood of the hatch creaked and snapped. Ruddy sand slipped in through the cracks and piled on the ground. That was our cue.

Shawn sprinted forward, and toward the next old, rickety ladder that led up to the next hatch. He leaped onto it, but a tendril of sand spat forward and slammed into his side, and cracked the ladder. Shawn fell to the ground and sprawled onto the ground. The mass of the sand slipped through. It moved toward us like a living wave of rosy gold.

The way it scraped against the ground, sounded like dozens of feet dragging across the ground.

“From the domain of Paimon, I call for you, o thou daughters of the wind, dance before me.”

A small twister formed in front of me, and the air within the tunnel howled and felt as if it had gotten thinner. The dervish slammed into the sand creature and scattered the sand, stunning the approach momentarily. I helped Shawn onto his feet: his Repel was already beginning to crack around his ribs where the tendril had hit.

We reached the next hatch, and Shawn flew up. The wave of sand chased after us, and I sent another Dervish in its direction, and Shawn basically yanked me to my feet. We climbed into another house: though this one seemed to be two stories. One of the hare creatures descended from the top stairs. Shawn glanced at me, and I nodded. I slammed the hatch down and fell back down on it as the living sand began to batter it to try to come in.

Shawn crossed the room with two, bounding steps. The hare tried to reach for a sword at its side, but the man was too quick. He grabbed hold of the hare’s arm mid-reach and tossed him across the room. I hopped out of the way, and the hare crashed into the floor where I had been. I kicked it over the hatch and stamped on its clavicle to keep it in place before I pointed the staff down and chanted:

“Gnomes, servants of Gob the Magnanimous, I beseech thee to impale my enemies.”

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A stone spike jutted out of the ground pushed through the creature’s skull, and killed it. I felt what weariness I felt was lifted as I leveled up.

“Form some spikes in the floor.”

I did as he suggested and formed a couple of spikes out of the stone of the floor. Four in total. He plucked them as easily as one might pluck a flower and stabbed it into the arms, legs, and in the middle of the hare, to hold it in place. The living sand, battering against the hatch all the while.

“How do we kill living sand?” Shawn asked as he glanced at the rattling hatch.

“I have no clue.” I glanced to the door, and took a breath, “Hopefully it stays there trying to get out while we finish the rest.”

He grinned.

“Finish the rest? Do you have a plan?”

I shook my head.

“I don’t know: brute strength? Do you think they know we’re here?”

He shrugged.

“You fought these before, right?”

“Right.”

“How do they normally act?”

“Well...they’re smart and vicious. Some of them have weapons, but most rely on their talons and beaks. They go down easily, though.”

I nodded. What could we do? I glanced around the house. Unlike the house in the city that I broke into two nights prior, this one was quite primitive. I wondered, briefly, if perhaps this was a civilization that had fallen long before the city, but I pushed that thought out of my mind. There would be time a plenty to speculate. For now, we needed to either come up with a way to kill nearly 50 flying enemies or a construct living sand. No matter how much I searched, however, I couldn’t think of anything. I pulled at my hair and paced the room. What could I use? There was a simple rug that we stood on, simple furniture, and some terracotta jars, I wracked my brain, but I couldn’t think of anything, nor did I have the time to think of anything, as the rattling against the hatch grew all the more intense. I wrapped my hand around the shaft of my staff and took a deep breath to steel my nerves.

“I think we’re just going to have to fight,” I said after steeling my resolve.

I tapped Shawn with the staff and recast, Repel, Other on him once more. The mere suggestion of the fight had stirred something in him, and he hurriedly rushed toward the front door.

“Hold up, water is your catalyst for healing, right?”

“Right.”

I grabbed hold of the terracotta jars and pulled them open. Dust was the only thing that occupied any of them. I pulled my wand out of my pocket and stuck it into the small jars.

“Oh you that dwell within the waters, form for me a bead.”

Water flowed into the jar. Not much, but I cast it again. It took five casts to fill it up completely. There were five other jars, so it took me about 25 casts to fill them up. While doing it, my core began to burn, and I hissed.

“You alright?”

“Yeah…”

The Shard glowed in my backpack, and the message appeared in my mind.

Novice Mage I finished. +10 Magic, +10 Magic Affinity

I had nearly forgotten about those…

I put the lids back on the jars and handed them to Shawn.

“What am I supposed to do with these?”

“Just in case,” I answered.

He shrugged and packed them into his bag. I pushed myself off of the ground and stretched out my back. The hatch ceased its rattling. Perhaps it was looking for another way out...if it did, and we were on the ground, we would be in trouble. I stopped Shawn from heading out front and motioned for the stairs.

“Ah, are we going to be fighting on the roof?”

I nodded, and he rolled his shoulder and stepped up the stairs in front of me. The steps were wide and broad: made of the feet of the giant bipedal hares, perhaps. As he stepped in front of me, I noticed that the empty spots in his quiver filled up, as we stepped up the stairs.

“So your quiver refills? How?”

He shrugged.

‘It just does. Niet gifted me it.”

“They can do that?”

“Do what?”

“Give gifts?”

“Of course? They’re gods. What does your do?”

“Answers questions sometimes and insults me.”

Oh, come on. I’ve been useful.

Yeah, yeah.

Hmph.

We climbed to the top floor: there was another staircase that led up to a hatch. Shawn pushed it up and climbed onto the roof. The harpies still surrounded the house that we had gone in. The top of the house was a single harpy, surrounded by interlocking circles of crimson light. Above these interlocking wheels of light, was a single ruby point of light brighter than the rest.

“I have an idea,” Shawn muttered as he reached back into his quiver. He grabbed one of the javelins and cocked his arm back.

“Might want to cover your ears.” He said as he pulled a pair of earplugs from his pockets.

“What wh—“

BOOM

He tossed the javelin, and the air in front of it formed a funnel before cracking that barrier of air. The javelin flew toward the harpy surrounded by the circles of light at the speed of sound. Waves of sand and torrents of howling winds intercepted it, as the harpies: just as temporarily stunned as I was from the sonic boom, turned toward the two of us. The javelin fell to the ground into the sand in front of the group.

“Great plan…” I muttered: though all I heard when he turned with that stupid grin on his face, was the incessant ringing in my ears.